Published 9:57 pm, Thursday, October 31, 2013

One of the dangers shoppers face buying designer resale online is the risk of purchasing a counterfeit. Without being able to inspect an item personally, how do you know you're getting the real deal?

Enter Lollipuff, a nearly year-old Bay Area site that is the only online auction site to verify the authenticity of an item without taking the merchandise in hand. A seller submits digital photographs of the item, and Lollipuff verifies the item's authenticity using a patent-pending process to detect impostors before bogus items are posted. Consignment competitor the Real Real requires that potential sale items be sent to the company for human authentication.

On the search for preowned Léger, Deyle found herself turning to eBay. The former electrical engineer taught herself how to tell the real from the convincing (and not so convincing) fakes with an emphasis on being able to spot inconsistencies in photographs.

"Any authenticator now who can't tell a fake from a photo isn't one I trust," she says.

As she became more attuned to spotting impostors, Deyle estimated that 60 to 75 percent of lots marked as Léger on eBay were knockoffs. After Deyle began vouching for the integrity of Léger pieces for some of the site's top fashion sellers, her profile rose in the online authentication world. She came to be seen not just as an authority on Léger but also on Louboutin, Chanel, Balenciaga and several other designers.

"PayPal accepts my seal of approval for authenticity cases for eBay," Deyle says of her expertise. "I've done a number of them and always won."

Deyle started a blog devoted to Hervé Léger, which became such a good source for authentication that readers began to use the space to sell pieces with Deyle's seal of approval. From that blog came Lollipuff, named for the seed-spreading final incarnation of the dandelion, co-founded with Deyle's husband, Travis Deyle, and former Google software engineer David Mohs. Financial backing came from Y Combinator, a seed funder for startups.

"The fear of buying a fake is one of the biggest things that prevents people from buying an expensive fashion item online," says Y Combinator partner and co-founder Jessica Livingston. "We are always excited to fund people who are domain experts, and Fei has proven to be a true expert on this type of authentication."

By not requiring that it take items in hand for authentication, Lollipuff is able to keep the seller commission at a low 7 percent. The company declined to give specific numbers but said it's gaining users at a rate of roughly 20 percent month over month.

To authenticate items, Lollipuff combines human skill and electronic shortcuts. Deyle is intentionally vague when discussing the technology's role in the authentication process out of security concerns ("You want to know, our competitors want to know," she says), but does acknowledge certain safeguards.

To authenticate shoes, for example, users are required to submit photographs of soles, backs, side and labels. With a purse, labels, seams and especially hardware are the focus.

"To guarantee an item's pictures aren't stolen, we also require photos that include Lollipuff codes on a note in the shot. The software can see if the code was digitally added later. The 'bait and switch' method of showing an authentic item and then sending a fake is a consistent problem on other sites."

After the software "organizes" photo submissions, the human side of authentication comes in, Deyle says. She continues to do most of the hands-on authenticating herself with help from a trusted handful of colleagues when needed.

"We really focus on the cream of the crop when it comes to designer goods for our users, and making sure they are getting authentic items is our main priority," she says. "You're still getting a great buy on Lollipuff compared to the retail price. A great buy doesn't have to have a risk attached."